The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Rules Christmas Box Office

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug won the box office for the second week in a row. And if the Christmas holiday receipts are any indication, the Peter Jackson film will make it three for three -- although it looks as if a new release might overtake it by the time all is said and done by the end of Sunday.

The second chapter of Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy banked $9.3 million on December 25, followed closely by the fifth collaboration between Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio. The Wolf of Wall Street finished second with $9.2 million, showing that pre-release buzz met positive critical response (check out our five-star The Wolf of Wall Street review). And given word of mouth that can only grow as we head into the weekend, Scorsese’s latest may close out the Christmas-through-the-weekend period at the top spot.

Third place belonged to Anchorman 2, last week’s number two, which banked nearly a third of what it made all of last weekend on Christmas Day alone with $8.1 million. In fourth place was another new film, Ben Stiller’s The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, which debuted with a $7.8 million haul, while fifth place found American Hustle hustling up another $7.4 million to bring its total earnings to $34.1 million.